Home sweet smart home

I know everyone has heard this before. It brings back memories of things like Disneyland’s “House of the Future.” To make this possible, one approach is for the eMeter to upgrade to a Smart eMeter, meaning transitioning from a single network to multiple networks. In the past, a single wireless network like ZigBee or wired power line communication (PLC) was all that was needed to report back to the utility. But to achieve the ability to connect to multiple devices and actually operate those devices, it’s necessary to build multiple networks on top of each other in order for the networks to communicate simultaneously. For example, Wi-Fi, sub 1.0 GHz, 2.4 GHz, and Ethernet can all possibly be used in the same system. This drives the need to run highly sophisticated software. There has been a movement to high-end real-time operating systems (RTOSs), from vendors such as Mentor Graphics and Green Hills, or high-level operating systems (HLOSs), such as Android, Linux or Windows Embedded CE. When you combine these operating systems with increased software stack sizes to accommodate these many types of communications, embedded designs are suddenly based on 32-bit MCUs, such as TI’s Stellaris ARM Cortex- M3 MCUs, with large embedded flash sizes and external memory interfaces, or even TI’s 32-bit microprocessor (MPU) offerings, the Sitara ARM Cortex-A8 or ARM9 MPUs.

Figure 3: Example of PLC solution application spectrum.

The ARM Cortex-A8 is the first processor to incorporate a variety of technologies that make it ideal for the smart home use. These technologies include TrustZone security technology, the Thumb-2 instruction set and Jazelle-RCT for fast and efficient Java execution. All of these attributes as well as high flexibility with horse power make the Cortex-A8 an ideal fit for embedded smart home systems.

Not only is ARM helping to drive the technology forward, but major semiconductor companies, including TI, are contributing their technology as well. We are seeing the introduction of “combo ICs” as a welcome and much-needed next step. We’ve already seen superscalar combo-processors that enable Internet-ready applications to share rich media content among a variety of devices connected to the smart home network. These combo ICs include Bluetooth/Wi-Fi and Bluetooth/WIMAX/Wi-Fi among the many fascinating combinations readily available.

Another driving force behind the widespread acceptance of the smart home network is the security advancements. The smart electric grid is not only an amazing tool and feat, but a large liability. The U.S. government is working to ensure regulations are in place to keep the grid safe from terrorists, miscreant hackers, and others who may pose a threat. As the grid becomes smarter and more highly connected, it becomes a significant challenge compared to the mechanical versions.

A solution to resolve the security issue would be to move the smart grid to a cloud. Just recently, Verizon announced that it has teamed up with key players in smart grid technology to offer cloud-based Smart eMeter services. Moving to the cloud not only helps provide security, but the utility companies like it because of reduced upfront capital investment.

When you consider the aging infrastructure in this country, the need to combat global warming, and the need to use all of our energy more wisely, eMetering or Smart eMeters are ideal solutions with financial backing available from Washington. In 2007, President Obama signed into legislation a clean energy bill that included $4.5 billion in direct spending to modernize the current power grid networks with smart grid technologies. Additionally, a whole new generation of electric vehicles from Detroit is ready to make its grand entrance. Putting electric vehicles on the road benefits everyone – not only for the obvious environmental reasons, but electric vehicles also have the ability to even out the differences between the peaks and valleys in electricity demand making the utility companies and rate payers much happier.

As we transition from the eMeter to implementing Smart eMeters, users will be empowered with a truly connected home to save on cost, provide entertainment and daily life conveniences, and be environmentally friendly, making their own home a “home sweet smart home” indeed.

About the author
Sean Murphy is a manager for Focus End Equipments- Commerical human machine interface (HMI) for the Sitara ARM microprocessor business unit at Texas Instruments. His responsibilities include defining new solutions, developing reference designs, and shaping the Sitara ARM MPU roadmap for Commerical HMI applications.

In previous roles at TI, Murphy has served as a product marketing manager for the Sitara ARM MPU business and business development manager, focusing on the MSP430, C2000, and Stellaris Cortex-M3 microcontroller market and a test engineer.

Murphy received a Bachelor of Science in electronic engineering from Texas A&M University.

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The smart home concept appeared a lot of time ago and now this concept can be put into practice thanks to the advancing of wireless technologies. My aunt found out about the opportunities the smart home gives after she bought bedroom furniture for her kids, she decided to try it out and now she got so used to it.

My nephew installed such an eMeter in his house after he saw an ad at the TV about it, he was very interested to create an user-friendly home and this was the best option besides installing drains from DesignerDrains.com. He bought electric, water, and gas meters that offered smart connectivity and he is very pleased by his idea to install them, the other day he made a surprise for his wife and adjusted the thermostat when he was at work.

@Robotics Developer: kudos! Thanks for injecting a lot of commonsense! Much of the smart grid industries would do well if they stay OUT of consumer's homes. I have rigorously argued in conferences (like ConnWeek) that utilities do NOT need visibility inside the house as to how the consumer is using/saving energy. They should just stick to transmission & distribution. The only smartness needed here is the capability to meter and monitor consumer-generated power (like solar roofs) and this can be done at the meter, smart or otherwise!
You are right, this sounds too much Orwellian.
MP Divakar

Well we have recently had smart electricity meter installed. Communication is via secured wireless to the utility company, so no access to the data directly from the meter. The utility says that maybe in a year or two they will allow access to the data, but would be updated about once an hour or so.
Thus no real-time data that would help with conserving energy.

Robotics Developer makes many good points.
For me, having a "smart home" networked in such a way as having a third party have access to my homes "innards", let alone a degree of control, is definitely not my cup of tea.
If you ever worry about major infrastructure networks being hacked - which has happened more than once - then you have to worry about any home network with outside access being very vulnerable. Why invite that kind of invasion?

What happens in the US when one fails to pay the electricity bill? Does the electric company 'cut' the power line to your home? In Mexico, that's what happens. I suppose that using Smart eMeters will give the companies the power to cut the line remotely whenever we forget to pay the bill. This would become a money saving opportunity for the electric companies. I think all this about Smart grid is really beneficial to the companies, the vendors, not that much for us consumers. Anyway, seems to be the right thing to do.

I could not help feeling this was a marketing blitz type of article for the smart grid / connected home industries. While having the ability to adjust and control your own home's heat/lights/oven etc remotely is a nice thing, it is not really needed! Just having some smarts (programmable thermostats) would allow for all these things to be programed in advance. The whole smart grid is both very invasive and too Orwellian for my taste. As it is, energy efficient refrigerator/freezers save a lot of energy but at a cost of very limited cooling. Maybe our house use is different than others but we shop once a week, bring the food home (already starting to warm up from the drive home)and put it into the frig/freezer. It takes forever to cool down that much thermal mass as a direct result of the reduction in cooling capacity dictated by the energy efficient design. What would be more helpful would be a variable cooling capacity unit that uses only as much energy as needed to get the temps down where they should be. I do have to laugh at the concept of the fully connected power grid. Right now here in New England when we lose power the power company does not even know it. The power company does not have the ability to detect and localize power outages remotely and must send crews out to inspect the lines! How can we (not that I would want it) expect to have our homes monitored by the power company if they don't even have in place now the infrastructure needed to diagnose basic transformer issues and downed power lines? Not to mention that I don't need the government telling me (or my AC/furnace) that I can't cool/heat my home the way I want to. And don't get me going on Global Warming!

"A solution to resolve the security issue would be to move the smart grid to a cloud." To my knowledge, smart grid is serving electricity and the cloud is the Internet. Therefore, either smart grid is already in the cloud or is going to merge with the cloud. Merging smart grid with the cloud will increase flexibility of administration and management. Yet, imo, it will impose more security challenges since it will naturally become target of hackers.